Web Cameras Can Be Your Eye On The World

April 30, 2000|By VANI RANGACHAR Los Angeles Times

In the Internet world, there's been an explosion in the number of digital Web cameras, those electronic eyes that give users a peek at a potential vacation destination or provide a momentary digital escape from the workaday world.

Quality varies dramatically from high-resolution, real-time images that make you feel as though you could be there to grainy, almost unidentifiable images updated so infrequently they may as well be still photographs. With that caveat, here are some travel sites worthy of bookmarking:

Africam, www.africam.com: A place to watch exotic animals in their natural environment, from cameras trained on spots in several national parks in South Africa, including Kruger, and game reserves, such as Satara.

Discovery.com, www.discovery.com: Click on Live Cams. The best site I found in quality and range of subjects. The site, featuring mostly creatures, from ants to cheetahs to kittens and puppies, is well organized and easy to navigate, transmitting live video and audio of wild bald eagles gathering on Kachemak Bay near Homer, Alaska, between noon and 2 p.m. Pacific Time. It entertains as it educates with facts about the creature you are watching. The site also has a directory of Webcams that will link you to other sites.

Exploratorium, events.ex ploratorium.edu/CAM2/index. html: Perched atop San Francisco's Exploratorium science center, the RoofCam pans eight preset locations, giving a sense of the City by the Bay with images of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace Rotunda, among others.

Kotel Kam, www.kotelkam. com: From VirtualJerusalem.com comes a long view of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, giving a fascinating glimpse into tradition and culture at the religious icon.

National Parks Service, www.nps.gov/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm: It's the closest thing to being in Yellowstone National Park. With the Parks Service beaming a real-time image (updated every 30 seconds) of Old Faithful, you watch it erupt every few minutes.

Panda Central, www.sandie gozoo.org; click on Panda Central: The stars of this live cam show are the San Diego Zoo's three pandas, including mom Bai Yun and baby Hua Mei. The pandas spend most of their on-camera time sleeping in a tree, but they are so appealing that even their snoozing is entertaining.

Princess Cruises, www.princesscruises.com: Click on Live Bridge Cams. The Web site for Princess Cruise Lines offers cam views (updated every minute) from the bridge and decks of 10 ships in its fleet, so you can check out the view from the bridge as if you were onboard.

Earthcam, www.earthcam .com: The mother lode of Web cam information, offering a searchable database, lists divided by categories and links to Webcam sites. It offers its own list of 25 of the most interesting cams selected by a panel of Internet industry experts and top 10 picks for kids. Links range from cams focused on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to a peek at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Eyecam, www.eyecam.com: From GoCrawl.Com Inc., this is a searchable database of Web camera sites and sights. With links and lists divided by categories, it gives a range of travel-related sites.

Leonard's Cam World, www.leonardsworlds.com/camera.html: The site has links to outdoor cameras from Japan to the Arctic.